NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra

The programme of the first concert is nothing if not »hot off the press«: Alan Gilbert gives the first performance of a new work by Lisa Streich. The Swedish composer, born in 1985, wrote it to a commission from the Hamburg Claussen-Simon Foundation, whose composition prize will be presented to her at the festival.

Contemporary music is »as rich and diverse as mankind itself« (Alan Gilbert), and this much is also borne out by the monumental oratorio »In This Brief Moment« by Australian composer and former member of the Berlin Philharmonic Brett Dean. As a Darwinistic alternative to Haydn's Biblical »Creation« and a successor to Beethoven's »Pastoral« Symphony, the work portrays Man's destructive influence on our planet. The composer himself says that his music is intended to give the audience an opportunity to »be amazed at what once was, what is, and what could be lost forever«.